PIOMBINO – German actress Lisa Martinek has died after falling ill while swimming from her boat near the idyllic island of Elba, reports Il Messaggero.

Ms Martinek, 47, was swimming in the sea while on holiday with her family on the small island, which is some 10 kilometres off the coast of Tuscany. After diving from the boat moored off Sant’Andrea, she lost consciousness and was rescued by her husband, well-known German-Italian actor and director Giulio Ricciarelli, who was on board with their three children.

 They returned to port, where a helicopter took Martinek to the Misericordia Hospital in Grosseto. Despite the best efforts of medical staff, she died on Friday, the family lawyer Christian Schertz told the Berliner Kourier.

Martinek was married to Ricciarelli since 2009, and they lived together in Berlin and Munich with their three children, who are all between four and eight years old.

 Martinek was known principally for her work in German film and television productions. Born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1972, she studied at the Hamburg University for Music and Theatre before starring in a number of productions, including Trial by Fire for which she was nominated for aDeutscher Filmpreis, the highest German film award, in 1998. She acted alongside Christoph Waltz in the 2007 remake of Helmut Käutner's Die Zürcher Verlobung, and starred in crime series Das Duo from 2006 to 2011.

Ricciarelli is perhaps best known for his debut feature-film, Labyrinth of Lies (2014), which was nominated as a German candidate for best foreign language film at the Oscars.

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